Beautiful wave mold with recess for candle

Doing a practice slump first. I full fused together 2 pieces of 3mm clear glass, 6 1/2 by 7 3/4 inches with the following firing schedule:

400dph...............................1250 degrees................................hold 30 min
600dph................................1480 degrees...............................hold 15 min
Full........................................900 degrees...............................hold 30 min
150 dph.................................700degrees.................................hold 1 min
Full..........................................70 degrees.................................OFF

And that worked pretty well, so I am going to try to slump this onto a wave mold with recess for candle.

As you can see the fused glass panel is slightly longer than the mold, but there is a curved end to it on the right and I am hoping that the glass slumps down to the small edge, but we shall see.   That is the most important question about the slumping, like the previous slump there is a circular indentation, slightly deep which I hope it slumps into .  Thus i will hold on it longer, not as long as the other slump because that is deeper, per se, but long 30 min.  I will use the following slump firing schedule:

300dph..................................1220degrees......................hold 30 in
Full..........................................900degrees.......................hold 1 hour
100dph...................................700degrees.......................................
Full ..........................................70 degrees..............................Off

In the future I plan to put 2mm with 3mm clear glass making it less heavy and I will try to fuse a leaf in it, as requested by Will and in another I will be adding flowers.  Fun experiments to come.  But now I see if it will slump and whether it is too long for the mold.


It worked, as the following picture will show, so now I am going to try the whole thing again, using a piece of 2mm clear and cover it with white and green mix, 3mm. I will fuse this first using a schedule suggested in Bullseye web site for getting rid of bubbles then I probably will add some decorations, I was thinking of green pine like additions and tack fuse that and then slump the whole thing.  The whole piece will be 6 1/2 " by 7 1/2" instead of 6 1/2" by 7 3/4" that I used on the practice piece.

I full fused the next piece one using special bullseye firing to minimize bubblesResults were ok, not great, but they also said you could use clear powder in between layers to minimize bubbles.  I will try that next.  The resultant piece had uneven edges, a couple of bumps, which makes me think it fired too hot, and I had to grind edges to try and smooth it out.  Got to remember to take the grinder out of studio or the water in it will freeze over night.  I cut some forest green glass with my mosaic nippers and placed it on the piece to sort of resemble a pine tree and a fern like thing.  I am now tack fusing it using the bullseye schedule:

600dph........................1450 degrees............................20 min
Full................................900..........................................1 hour
100dph.........................700...........................................1 min
Full..................................70..........................................Off

This tack fuse was a little more than I wanted.  I got my kiln, a Paragon Fusion 7 glass kiln with a ceramic fiber top in place of the firebrick top, which really keeps the heat in.  So I think I have to fire it a little lower and not hold for so long.  Neverthe less I am slumping it now and will post a picture of the finished project.

Slumping round disk with uneven surface

I am currently slumping a 6 inch round clear disk, with an uneven surface because I full fused s thick glass flower to one side and a thing glass flower to the other side,  made up of 2 2mm clear glass disks, into a relatively steep mold.  So small piece of glass into deepish mold.  After seeing video in Bullseye education, I learned that it should take more time to slump into a deep mold than to slump into a bigger mold that is relatively shallow.  So I used the following firing schedule:

200dph, I choose to ramp up slowly, because of the uneven surface, thinking to give the glass enough time to heat up evenly.  I will ramp up to 1210 degrees, here again the process temperature I read, is not so important but the hold time is.  I choose to hold for 45 minutes at process temperature.  Then from there all is the same.  It ramps down to 900 degrees as fast as possible.  Hold 1 hour.  Then 100 slowly dph until it goes to 700 degrees and then full power until room temperature.

             200dph.......................1210 degrees...........................hold 45 min

Full..............................900 degrees..............hold 1 hour

100 dph......................................700 degrees............hold 0

Full ...........................................70 degrees...................off

So, I will be looking to see whether or not the glass breaks and whether or not it slumps correctly.  It worked, here are the results.

Tack Fusing

Tack Fusing

I am going to tack fuse these flowers onto 2 pieces of circular clear glass previously full fused together.  First I am full fusing 2 pieces of circular clear glass using the full fuse from the colour de verre and then I will tack fuse these guys to it.  So in my mind it appears that one of the most important questions in glass fusing is the firing schedule.  In most cases I have found that the Bullseye schedules are best.  And that simple is best.  Each time I have tried to make up a firing it has not worked out, either the glass broke or it was beset with devitrication.  But for the base in this project which is 2 pieces of 2mm circular glass I have used the firing schedule recommended by the colour de verre instructions with some minor alterations on my part and that was:

400dph..................................................1250 degrees.....................hold 30 min
600dph...................................................1420 degrees....................hold 10 min
FULL.......................................................900 degrees.....................hold 1 hour
100dph....................................................700 degrees......................hold 1min
Full............................................................70 degrees......................Off

So I am going to use the tack fuse schedule that is recommended by Bullseye for a first tack-fuse firing of a piece composed of one layer of 4mm base glass and an application of frits and powders.  I have 2 layers of 2mm glass covered with multiple layers of glass, frit and other additions.  The schedule is as follows:


600 dph................................................1450 degrees......................hold 15 min
FULL......................................................900 degrees......................hold 1 hour
100 dph..................................................700 degrees.......................hold 1 min
FULL........................................................70 degrees........................Off

That flower I tried to create is multi layered, the pieces of glass are pieces i got with my mosaic chopper from a previously fired screen melt.  So this design may be a lot thicker than an application of frits and powders that are described in the Bullseye instructions.  Nevertheless I am trying it anyway.  I will tack fuse that flower and the blue flower along with some stringer and single pieces of glass onto the circular panel that I have already fused together and see if that works.

Upon further reflection, and further reflection is always a good thing, I decided not to tack fuse it but to full fuse it instead.  Since there were so many thick pieces of prefired glass and so many different amounts I thought a full fuse would be better.  So I am using the following schedule:

400dph....................1250 degrees.............................hold 30 min
600 dph....................1470 degrees............................hold 15 min
FULL.........................900 degrees.............................hold 30 min
150 dph.....................700 degrees.............................hold 1 min
Full .............................70 degrees.............................OFF

The full fused worked although now the disk has an uneven surface. this is going to effect how I slump it.